


the end is all that's ever true

by kelidahauk



Series: crow black dreams [7]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Yakuza, Angst and Feels, Blood and Violence, Communication, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gun Kink, Gun Violence, I Love You, Kageyama Tobio is Bad at Feelings, Kageyama Tobio is a Good Boyfriend, Lack of Communication, M/M, Major Character Injury, Protective Kageyama Tobio, Tsukishima Kei is Bad at Feelings, Tsukishima Kei is a Little Shit, Tsukishima Kei is a Mess, Violence, foes to hoes, sword kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25818424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kelidahauk/pseuds/kelidahauk
Summary: Tobio thinks of Kei and he thinks of death.He wants to tell Kei,you are incredible.He wants to tell Kei,you are an asshole.He wants to tell Kei,you are powerful and beautiful and brave.He wants to tell Kei,you are the reason I wake up in the morning.He wants to tell Kei,I will never leave you, so please don’t leave me.He wants to tell Kei all of these things, but all he can do is clutch at his cheek and babble his name while the world goes to hell around them.“Don’t die,” is all he can tell Kei, and he hopes it will be enough.
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Tsukishima Kei
Series: crow black dreams [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1845355
Comments: 21
Kudos: 116





	the end is all that's ever true

**Author's Note:**

  * For [batman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/batman/gifts).



> This is MAYBE the final chapter to Crow Black Dreams, but never fear: I don't write chronologically, so I'll be back filling this series with many more Yakuza AU Tsukikage shenanigans. There'll likely be an epilogue, too, so stay tuned. I also fail at planning, so you might need to disregard everything I said before this sentence. We'll see what happens. 
> 
> Tl;dr: this may seem like a finale, but I ain't done, baby. The Tsukikage brainworms are real and I've got to spew them out. Enjoy.
> 
> PS: This takes place several years after the other fics in the series. Kei's gotten a promotion. He's no longer shingiin (lawyer). He's now saiko-komon (personal advisor to the don, head of the administrative branch of the family).

The casino is too loud, too bright, too crowded. It’s everything Tobio hates: bodies are pressed in against each other, hot and sweaty and slippery. Smoke hangs heavy in the air as kyodai from Tokyo’s yakuza families trade expensive cigars, pass joints, inhale bitter cigarettes. Dice and poker chips clatter and coins clink. It smells like whiskey and beer and sex and sweat and sake and cigars and life and death. It’s awful. He wants to leave.

He can’t leave. This casino and others like it, buried deeply within Tokyo’s seedy underbelly, are Kei’s masterpiece. They were planted and nurtured, like the succulents lining the balcony and bookshelves in their loft, and they’re thriving. Karasuno-kai is thriving because Kei is smart, and cunning, and brutal, and because he systematically rooted out other underground betting establishments and buried these in their place. They have sprung to life because of Kei. Tobio is here for Kei.

Kei is here for business. He and Sawamura-oyabun and Suga-san are meeting with Nohebi to discuss an expansion of the Karasuno gambling empire. It makes Tobio uneasy, having his oyabun and wakagashira and saiko-komon all in one small back room. It’s too top-heavy. These men are Karasuno and the underworld knows it. Daishou-oyabun is a snake and the underworld knows it. 

This meeting is stupid and reckless and it absolutely reeks of _Kei,_ who has _mostly_ stopped being stupid and reckless with his life, but who cannot help himself when there’s a tempting business deal at stake. It’s not like it’s always bad; Kei’s head for business has secured Karasuno-kai a surplus of profits, has helped the wingless crows take back the skies. But everyone knows how ruthless Nohebi is. They don’t make deals. Tobio’s fingers itch and something curdles in his stomach and his skin hums, stretched too thin. He wants to leave and drag Kei with him. 

Tobio cannot undermine Kei like that. Kei is saiko-komon and the oyabun’s most valued advisor, and he has breathed life into Karasuno. Tobio cannot, would not, speak against him in public. Instead, he plays the part of the dutiful shugosha: Tobio sits seiza behind him, knees bent, resting on his heels. A naked katana lies across his legs and he keeps his head bowed, but he carefully watches the room through strands of silky black hair. Tobio is one bodyguard in a room of powerful and important men, and he has Kei’s favorite blade across his legs and two handguns strapped to his sides, hidden underneath the black haori. He sits, and he watches, and he waits.

 _"You should not come,"_ he’d told Suga-san earlier, ignoring the look of surprise as it spread across the wakagashira’s face when Tobio expressed an opinion, strung a sentence together. " _Azumane should."_ That way the second in command could stay tucked safely away at the estates, and Sawamura’s shugosha would be present to protect him. 

It wasn’t what Tobio wanted, but it was better than the current situation. Sawamura-oyabun had to be present. Kei had to be present. Suga-san's presence was superfluous and he would be safer elsewhere. He could become Sugawara-oyabun if things went south and Kei’s legacy, Karasuno’s greatness, would be preserved. The snakes and the eagles and the foxes would not eat them up.

 _"I have to come,"_ Suga-san had said, _"for the same reasons you do."_

 _"You are not shugosha,"_ Tobio had told him, confused by the proclamation.

 _"I belong at Daichi’s side,"_ Suga-san had insisted, " _like you belong at Tsukishima’s."_

 _"You are not his shugosha,"_ Tobio had protested, again. _"You’re our wakagashira."_

 _"For him, I will always be shugosha,"_ Suga-san had said. " _Just like you. We cannot let them face this alone."_

None of them are alone. _A murder of crows can eat a snake,_ Tobio tells himself, reassuringly.   
  
It doesn’t help. This meeting room, as well as private apartments and offices, are buried even further underground. The sounds of the casino, loud and awful, cannot penetrate this far below the ground. Inside the room are four snakes, like there are four crows, and the numbers make Tobio uneasy. He can tell the situation makes Suga-san nervous, too: the wakagashira-turned-shugosha vibrates with the same energy Tobio feels deep within his bones. Sawamura-oyabun is as impassive as always, regarding Daishou through carefully-controlled features. Kei’s eyes are bright, chasing a deal. This is the kind of shit that he lives for, brokering contracts and drawing up terms in favor of Karasuno. Tobio doesn’t understand, but he pretends to, for Kei.

Elsewhere in the casino, other crows are ready to mob. Nishinoya and Azumane are in another office, three doors down and to the right. They are counting the night’s profits but they are also counting bullets, in case the deal with Nohebi goes south. On the casino floor, Tanaka and Hinata and Ennoshita prowl, mingling with the other gamblers, making sure no one’s trying to cheat the oyabun out of his earnings. There are crows everywhere but Tobio is also certain that there are more snakes hidden in the grass.

A naked katana lies across his legs as Tobio rests on his heels behind his other half, his forever burden. He listens as Kei carefully outlines the expansion deal but his steely blue gaze is fixated on Daishou, who sits across from Sawamura and at an angle from Kei. Daishou’s eyes, narrow little slits, dart back and forth between Sawamura and Tobio as if he’s sizing up which one is the more formidable foe. 

Tobio knows from the glance of his eyes that Daishou thinks Suga-san looks like less of a problem than the oyabun and the shugosha, though that’s inaccurate: the Silver Crow of Karasuno was a deadly assassin long before he rose through the ranks and became second in command. And he can tell that Daishou writes Kei off completely, which is also a mistake. The katana across Tobio’s legs is meant for him, tilted perfectly so that Kei can snatch it in an instant. His pretty boy lawyer may still be shit in a fire fight no matter how much time he’s put in at the range, but Tobio knows exactly how fast and deadly and beautiful he can be with 28 inches of sharpened steel in his hands. It’s a thing of glory.

“I fail to understand,” Daishou says, his voice cutting through the room, “how exactly you expect Nohebi to benefit from this arrangement.” 

Across the table, Nohebi’s nameless shugosha twitches. A small smile curls on Daishou’s lips. Of course Daishou doesn’t understand; Tobio knows he doesn’t _want_ to understand. He came to this meeting with a different purpose, because Nohebi doesn’t make deals, and it bothers Tobio that he can’t figure out what that purpose is. Are they sizing up Sawamura-oyabun and his saiko-komon? Are they trying to figure out how the casino operates, how they churn out profits? What do the snakes want from this meeting?

Sawamura asks the question that chokes in Tobio’s throat. “What do you want, then?”

Something crosses Daishou’s face as Sawamura speaks. It’s an ugly look, full of jealousy and rage, and it flits by so quickly that Tobio almost wonders if he truly saw it. 

Nohebi's oyabun keeps his voice smooth as he hisses, “I want Karasuno to stop being so high and mighty and _remember their place._ You offer me horse shit, when not so long ago you were _wingless._ You need to remember what it’s like to be down in the dirt with the rest of us.” 

In front of him, Kei’s shoulders are rigid. The mood shifts; Tobio grits his teeth. Daishou’s words to Sawamura are akin to a declaration of war. They’re ballsy, even for the Nohebi family, and Tobio wonders why he feels so comfortable uttering them here within the heart of Karasuno’s territory. He wants to leave. This casino, this meeting room, this confrontation are everything that Tobio hates. When he was just the Black Dog of Karasuno, he avoided such things: he didn’t worry about politics, or deals, or negotiations. They’re awful. He wants to leave. He wants to leave and drag Kei with him. 

🌛👑🌜

In retrospect, Tobio would realize: it had been a trap. Nohebi’s men were everywhere, and they’d silently killed their way downstairs. Business in the casino went on as usual; no one noticed as they slithered, one by one, down the stairs and into the freight elevator, using fists and knives and stealth to their advantages. Drinks sloshed, dancers twirled, and lips puffed smoke as Nohebi’s men infiltrated the building, the crows on the main floor oblivious to the subterfuge below them. There were snakes in the halls, squirming around Karasuno’s beating heart, their fangs bared. 

An almost imperceptible sound comes from behind the heavy wooden door of the office and Tobio tenses, his whole body taut with anticipation. The door is kicked open. The katana is ripped from Tobio’s lap in the same instant he puts his hands on his guns, and all hell breaks loose. 

Two .380s, solid and black and cold with death, are clutched in his hands. Tobio swings them around to point at Daishou just as the oyabun steps back, allowing his shugosha to take up residence directly in front of him. He hides easily behind the man, his slender figure dwarfed by his bodyguard’s muscles. The shugosha has a katana, too, like Kei’s. He does not have Kei’s patience with the weapon and it will be the death of him. Tobio aims at the bodyguard, ready to shoot Daishou when he has a chance.

The Nohebi shugosha loses his head, metaphorically. He lunges across the table for Kei, the closest available target, the tip of the katana aimed at his heart. Rage and bloodlust distort his features. 

_A terrible bodyguard,_ Tobio thinks, _putting his emotions before his job._

The sword is poorly angled; Tobio has trained enough to recognize that the man is off-balanced, heavy on his feet. 

" _You have to be proactive with a sword, not reactive,"_ Kei had told him, before. " _You plan ahead. You set traps. You let them impale themselves."_

This man, this nameless shugosha, is on track to impale himself. Tobio watches it happen, observing Kei’s movements with satisfaction. The cold steel of Kei’s katana swings silently, powerfully; blood arcs against the wall as the Nohebi shugosha loses his head, literally. It thuds onto the table with a dull squelch. Kei draws back, turning to Tobio, his eyes wide with excitement and bloodlust and terror. There’s blood spattered across his cheeks, too. Tobio wants to lick it, wants to shove him down to the ground, wants to see him thrust his sword into another treacherous snake’s heart, _wants to thrust into him_. 

Suga-san has Sawamura on his feet, shoved in the corner, doing his best to cover the oyabun’s broad form with his own slender figure. His guns blaze but he is torn between aiming at the doorway and pointing them at the other two men protecting the Nohebi oyabun. A body slumps just inside the room; the acrid scent of smoke mingled with copper fills the air. 

_An incredible bodyguard,_ Tobio thinks, inhaling deeply, _putting his emotions into his job._

Sawamura peeks out from behind Suga-san, taking the opportunity to shoot at Daishou. He misses because the rival oyabun drops to the floor beneath the table, unholstering his own weapons. Tobio swears because he had a chance to shoot him and he didn’t. He’d let his desire distract him. The Black Dog of Karasuno had no weaknesses, but the saiko-komon’s shugosha does. Tobio feels guilty, but he _feels,_ so he thinks a little guilt is worth it.

He assuages his guilt by shooting the next motherfucker who tries to come through the door right in the middle of his fucking face. It dissolves in a spray of red and gray matter and Tobio is pleased. He steps closer to the table, trying to find an angle at which he can aim his guns at Daishou. 

_Cut the head off the snake, and the body falls,_ he thinks, calculating the angle, preparing to shoot through the table top. _End this, while you can._

Before he can pull the trigger, he hears more gunshots down the hallway. Azumane and Nishinoya must have joined the fight. Tobio can picture them in his head, peeking out of the office, trading potshots with Nohebi’s men. The shots are slow, the tempo between them heavy. The halls must be crowded, then, so it is unsafe for them to rush to Sawamura-oyabun’s assistance. They are pinned down. 

Kei is here because he can interpret thousands of bits of data as saiko-komon, reading case law and balancing books and performing cost-benefits analyses. Tobio is here because bullets and death are his language and he speaks them just as fluently. His mind works the same way, just differently, and he knows in this instance that unless circumstances drastically change, and soon, they are _fucked._

Again, he turns to find Daishou, ready to end this. Instead, he sees Kei. He is attacking another snake, who has learned quicker than his brothers that the Karasuno-kai saiko-komon should not be so quickly discounted. This one has a pair of .357s instead of a sword: gaudy and flashy things. Tobio’s nose wrinkles in distaste. He knows they are big and heavy and take far too much strength to stabilize. They’re for show, not for quick draws, and the Nohebi soldier learns this the hard way. 

Kei strikes with the sword. The flat of the blade slams into the left .357, knocking it to the ground; the sword _twists_ and the other gun joins its flight. Kei is stretching forward in a powerful lunge, the katana buried deeply within the hapless man’s rib cage, when Tobio’s world explodes. 

🌛👑🌜

Suga-san shoots at the final snake as Sawamura peeks out from behind him, trying to get Daishou within his sights. Briefly, oh so briefly, they leave the door uncovered. It’s a weakness of Karasuno’s, this occasional lapse in their defenses. Crows mob. They gather together and they attack en masse, confusing their enemies and taking advantage of their greater numbers to pluck out eyes and rip out feathers and destroy. They rely on each other to attack; their best defense is to press forward, relentlessly, as Karasuno is doing. They leave the door uncovered, and that’s when it happens.

Daishou bursts forth from under the table, running toward the door, leaving his men behind. He jumps and lunges; he clears the frame just as Suga-san turns back and fires. And in that instant, Tobio hears it: the dull thunk of a metal pipe hitting the wooden floor and rolling. It comes from underneath Daishou, as if one of his men had been waiting for the perfect moment, coiled and ready to strike. 

The sound is so ingrained into his memory, into his training, into his experience, that he immediately identifies the echo even over the cacophony of gunshots. He is too far away. Suga-san hears it, too. The Silver Crow turns, throwing himself bodily on top of his oyabun without hesitation, carrying him to the ground. Tobio is too far away to do the same for his saiko-komon. Kei does not recognize the sound. Tobio lunges but he does not make it because he is too far away. The room and his world explode.

He hits the wall, slides to the floor, _breathes,_ his ears ringing. His .380s are gone, torn from his hands by the force of the blast. The room fills with smoke. Over his head, there are more gunshots. Either Sawamura or Suga-san, and preferably both, must have lived. They are stopping the other Nohebi soldiers from rushing in the door and finishing them all off as they had obviously planned to do. Through the smoke, Tobio cannot tell which man is defending them. All he can see is Kei, a battered and bloody heap on the floor. 

Tobio clutches at an overturned chair and uses it to leverage himself up, rising to his feet. He feels something hit him, knock him to the side, and he belatedly realizes he’s been shot. He doesn’t feel pain. Shock is a bitch. His knows his whole body is shaking but he can’t feel it, just like he can barely hear the gunshots he’s sure are still firing around him. Shock may be a bitch, but adrenaline is a hell of a drug.

Kei is sprawled on his side, his back to the door. Tobio crawls to him, hovers over him, _looks_ at him. It’s the most beautiful and the most awful and the most wonderful and the most horrific thing Tobio has ever seen in his life, and his heart bursts and breaks in turns. Kei is not dead. He is choking on smoke, panting shallowly, his pupils blown wide with pain and fear and shock. He is burned, and he is bleeding, and Tobio is sure he is broken in multiple places. But Kei is not dead, which means he can still be fixed. 

Kei’s kimonos are burned, shredded from the blast that was altogether too close to him. Tobio knows it could be worse. Nohebi’s incompetence in all things is showing; a good pipe bomb, like one Hinata could have made, would have taken out the entire room. This one was underpowered, built poorly, too small to finish the job. It still did enough because Kei was too close and Tobio was too far.

The biggest concern is the twisted bit of shrapnel skewering him in the side; the same place, Tobio remembers, where Kei took a knife wound several years ago. It was that attack that led to Tobio being assigned as the shingiin’s shugosha. It was that wound that led to Tobio and Kei fighting and eventually fucking. It was that entire situation that led to Tobio following Kei into this awful casino, into this firefight, into this nightmare.

Tobio does not remove the chunk of metal from Kei’s side although he desperately wants to. He does not know what it might have pierced inside of him. He does not know if it is keeping Kei from bleeding out. He needs Nishinoya, Karasuno-kai’s medic, to come fix Kei. 

Tobio strains, listening intently, and he hears more pops down the hall. Those sounds mean that Nishinoya is still stuck with Azumane in the office three doors down and to the right when he needs to be here instead. Kei is not dead, which means he can be fixed. Tobio decides that Nishinoya must fix Kei.

His ears are still ringing from the shitty, underpowered bomb, but he hears it. 

“Tobi,” Kei says, and the sound of his nickname cuts through the gunshots and the smoke alarms and the yells coming from the hallway. 

Kei’s face is battered and bruised and the whites of his eyes are turning red from blood vessels burst by the force of the blast. Tobio hunches over him and places a palm on his cheek. Even that’s a gamble; the pale flesh is already darkening, turning purple with a spreading bruise. Tobio uses his most delicate touch to show Kei how much he loves him.

“Kei,” he says, trying to convey with his eyes everything that he can’t with his words.

“Sorry, Tobi, sorry—” Kei gasps apologetically, and Tobio is suddenly furious at him and at himself and at the world. 

Kei is apologizing because he was here for business, and because Daishou was a treacherous fucking snake, but mostly because Tobio didn’t leave and drag Kei with him. 

_I am the worst bodyguard,_ Tobio thinks, _learning how to feel because of this goddamn job._

A bloodied hand reaches up to place itself over Tobio’s. Two of the fingers are clearly dislocated. Tobio wishes he dared to cling to it but he cannot cause Kei more pain than he has already brought into his life.

“Kei,” he says as a sob catches in his throat. _“Kesha_ — _”_

He wants to tell Kei, _you are incredible._ He wants to tell Kei, _you are an asshole._ He wants to tell Kei, _you are powerful and beautiful and brave._ He wants to tell Kei, _you are the reason I wake up in the morning._ He wants to tell Kei, _I will never leave you, so please don’t leave me._ He wants to tell Kei all of these things but all he can do is clutch at his cheek and babble his name while the world goes to hell around them.

“Don’t die,” is all he can tell Kei, and he hopes it will be enough.

"Can't—" Kei chokes out, and Tobio leans in closer to hear him. "Can't tell me what to do, King." 

Kei’s torn and bloody lips pull themselves into a twisted grin. He is insufferable. He is an asshole who never listens to Tobio’s orders, but who listens to everything else Tobio has to say. He listens to the thousands of things Tobio _can’t_ say. One day, Kei took his hand and placed it on Tobio’s heart, and ever since he has listened to Tobio’s hopes and dreams and silently shared his own. They have always fought each other and they have always also fought together. 

The problem now is this: Tobio needs Kei to fight and it looks like he is trying to give up underneath him, long lashes flickering as he closes his eyes. Tobio cannot let Kei lose this fight; he cannot let Kei die. He is the shugosha to the Karasuno-kai saiko-komon and he cannot fail in his most sacred duty. In the offices of the Karasuno estate and the casino, Kei is in charge. He orders Tobio around and Tobio obeys. On the streets, where Kei is bloody and wounded, Tobio is in charge. It is time for him to take command, and he must make Kei obey his orders.

His brain runs through all the options, analyzing, determining the best course of action on this battlefield. He presents his orders to Kei in the best way he knows how, in the way that the two of them have always had — of challenging each other to rise to the occasion, of fighting a thousand tiny skirmishes against each other every day since they first met at that shitty bar on Shiratorizawa turf. 

"I'll concede," Tobio barters, as he tugs at the charred fragments of Kei's burnt kimono, checking for other major wounds. He ignores the blood dripping from his own arm, soaking into golden curls beneath him. There is a wound on Kei’s right shoulder, closest to the blast, and it is bleeding profusely. It’s a flesh wound, not as troublesome as the gut wound, but he has to stop the bleeding. Tobio rips off his haori and stuffs it against the gaping hole, applying pressure. Kei cries out in pain, but Tobio is relentless in all things, including this. He does not let up.

Instead, he offers, "If you live, you win. You win everything."

“Deal,” Kei gasps, opening his eyes again. Tobio meets them with a forced grin, but inside, his stomach knots. Kei’s stubbornness is legendary but it cannot keep him alive. He needs Nishinoya for that, and Nishinoya is still pinned down in the office three doors down and to the right, just like they are pinned down here. Tobio keeps applying pressure on Kei’s wound, his brain ticking away. Nishinoya is there and Kei is here and there is a hallway full of snakes with guns between them. It is too much. He wants to leave. He wants to leave and drag Kei with him.

🌛👑🌜

Sawamura is suddenly at Tobio’s side, and he is glad, so glad, that the oyabun did not die. Suga-san must also still live because the slow, steady pop of gunfire continues behind him at the door. Sawamura’s holsters are empty and Tobio knows he must have surrendered his own firearms to the Silver Crow. Their ammunition is limited. He scans the room for his own guns. 

“Go,” Sawamura says as he reaches for the blood-soaked haori. Tobio sits back on his heels and Sawamura takes over, leaning heavily onto Kei. 

“No,” Kei gasps out, his hand flailing, reaching for Tobio. “Stay, Tobi, stay—” 

Tobio hears it in his memories, the haughty shingiin demanding _"you have to stay, Kageyama, you can’t leave me."_ He catches Kei’s arm by the wrist so he won’t hurt himself, carefully avoiding raw, red scorch marks. Kei has always been demanding and Tobio has always given into his demands. This demand, maybe Kei's last, is one that Tobio cannot give in to. 

“Nishinoya,” he says to Kei and Sawamura. “I have to get Nishinoya. So he can fix you, Kesha. So you won’t die.”

“Stay,” Kei demands again, and Tobio places a very delicate kiss on the back of his hand before setting it down on the floor.

“Go,” Sawamura orders again, and Tobio rises to his feet. He cannot look back at Kei because he will be tempted to stay. But Kei is not dead, which means he can be fixed, and Nishinoya the medic is the person who can fix him. Nishinoya is three doors down and to the right, beyond a sea of snakes. That is a lot of territory to cover. Tobio looks for his guns. 

The problem is this: from the sound of the gunfire, he expects that there’s at least a dozen men between Tobio and Nishinoya, and Kei is dying. Tobio is too far away but he will bridge the distance. He has to, so Kei can win. His .380s have been thrown to the edge of the room by the blast, so Tobio scoops them up, checking the ammunition. He has six bullets spread between the two guns, which is not enough. He takes a moment to empty one gun completely, loading its ammunition into the other, and then he tosses the empty back down to the ground. Instead, he picks up Kei’s sword.

Suga-san is guarding the door, waiting for someone to attempt to enter before shooting them, because he is also saving his ammunition. When Tobio slides up next to him, the wakagashira mutely hands over both of his guns. Tobio trades him the katana. Suga-san has five bullets between two guns. Tobio consolidates them into one and gives Suga-san back the empty. Eleven bullets will have to be enough. With the katana, Suga-san can guard the door. It’s a fair trade. If Tobio does things right, no one will come to meet Suga-san at the door, anyway.

Tobio thinks of Kei and he thinks of death. He thinks of Nishinoya the medic and how he has to bring him back to Kei. He thinks of his shoulder, which is still bleeding. He doesn’t care if he has other wounds and he hasn’t looked to check. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug. He can raise both his arms. He can aim both his guns. He can run. All he has to do is clear the hall so he can bring Nishinoya back. He may die in the attempt. It’s a fair trade, as long as Nishinoya can get to Kei. A shugosha should be honored to die for his charge.

Tobio closes his eyes and listens. He breathes in and out; he slows his heart rate, and he focuses on the calm. He thinks of Kei’s heart, and how he has to help it continue to beat, and then he bolts into the hallway. Nohebi does not expect him. Tobio may be the worst bodyguard, but he’s the best assassin. He’s fast and quiet and accurate and deadly, and he’s going to make these snakes pay. He raises a gun and fires as he goes through the door. 

🌛👑🌜

The Black Dog of Karasuno is a sniper by preference but any gun will do. The bullets scream around him and Tobio’s heart screams in his chest, his anger and rage pouring out through his actions rather than his words. He slams Suga-san’s .45 into another man’s face, feels the crunch of nose under his strike, _shoves up_. He takes a kick to the side and stabs forward with his own .380, squeezing the trigger as he feels the muzzle strike flesh. There is blood everywhere and Tobio has killed four men so far with three bullets. 

Tobio runs. He ducks and weaves and he relentlessly fires. Five bullets are gone and another body drops. There are still so many to go but he does not give up, because he has to make sure Kei wins this battle. Something hits his thigh and he stumbles before finding his footing. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug so he keeps up his relentless pace even as his own blood spatters on the floor. 

Eight bullets are gone now and six bodies line the hallway behind him. His brain does the math as his eyes look ahead, moving, scanning for threats. There are at least five more men on the way to the office that contains Nishinoya and Azumane, and he has three more bullets. Tobio makes them count.

By the time he rounds the corner, he’s got his knives drawn, the empty guns discarded on the ground behind him. The knives are short and wickedly serrated and Tobio wears them in sheathes on his forearms, hidden within his kimono or under his shirt sleeves. They were a gift from Kei, who knows blades the same way Tobio knows guns, and they’re a delight to kill with. Tobio clings to the back of one Nohebi motherfucker like an overgrown koala, using his body for cover even as he slams a knife deep into his throat. The body drops, Tobio on top of him; he launches himself at his next victim, swiping both blades in front of him, drawing them across the gut.

Gunshots ricochet around Tobio, and he takes another blow to his right arm. It’s a bother because he needs it to stab the next barrier between him and the Karasuno-kai medic. Fortunately, the Black Dog of Karasuno is versatile. There’s no sense in holding two knives when one arm won’t work, so he whips his left hand up quickly and hurls the blade. It flies true and lodges in the shoulder of one of the final snakes, and it’s enough of a distraction for Azumane or Nishinoya or both to shoot him down. 

Tobio lurches into the final man, his strength fading as his blood drips onto the floor, but his weight bears both of them to the ground. He’s on top of him, smashing his face in repeatedly with the grip of the knife clutched tightly in his left fist, when he feels himself being pulled away. Tobio swings the blade blindly, his breathing harsh and ragged. Shock is a bitch, and his whole body is shaking with it. He recognizes that he’s gone fully feral, and he tries to remember what it is that he needs to do. It’s important, the most important thing in the world.

“Kageyama! Stop it!” he hears, and he opens his eyes to see gentle giant Azumane pulling him to his feet. “He’s dead,” Azumane says, his tone even softer than normal, like he knows he’s dealing with a wild animal. Tobio is so relieved to see him that he could weep. He tries to explain and chokes on the words.

“Kesha,” he says, and that’s all that comes out, Kei's silly little nickname. “Kesha.”

Nishinoya pops out of the office, a gun in his hand and a lurid orange medic’s bag slung across his back. He runs to Tobio and begins tugging at his clothing so he can examine all of the places he’s been shot. Tobio can’t keep track of them. He has zero bullets left in his guns but he has several lodged within him. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug.

“Bring him in,” Nishinoya directs Azumane. Tobio struggles in his hands, panicked, trying to communicate the most important thing he has ever tried to say.

“No. Kei,” he insists. “Fix him.”

“Kei?” Nishinoya asks, his voice sharp. His head snaps to the side and he scans the hallway for any snakes that may still have the misfortune to be alive. His muscles tense. Kei is his friend, too.

“Fix him,” Tobio begs. He tries to move, but it’s only by the grace of God and Azumane’s biceps that he’s remaining upright. Nishinoya finally gets the gist of what Tobio is trying to communicate, and he _runs._

Adrenaline may be a hell of a drug, but shock is a bitch. Tobio feels himself going fuzzy around the edges. He feels Azumane sweeping his legs out from under him. He thinks of Kei, and he feels warm, even when he’s shaking and everything is really just so very cold. And then, blissfully, he feels nothing else at all.

🌛👑🌜

Tobio _feels._

🌛👑🌜

The bamboo needles drive into Tobio’s thigh rhythmically and he sighs with pleasure at the pain. The lights are turned low and the air smells strongly of disinfectant. It’s an altogether soothing situation, to be stretched out with his leg bare and bloody in Akaashi Keiji’s tattoo parlor. The artist daubs ink onto Tobio’s skin, smoothing it in with expert, gloved hands. His irezumi are legend throughout Tokyo’s underworld, and Tobio would not let anyone else lay their hands on Kei.

His forever burden sits in front of him, his long and pale legs propped up on a chair as he relaxes, watching Tobio with a soft look on his face. Akaashi finished Kei’s ink first, and Tobio has spent the past few hours marveling at it, ignoring the needles digging into his own skin. A crown rings Kei’s right thigh, nestled high on his leg. It’s a thing of beauty, inked in gold and blue and silver, shaped of crescent moons, studded with sapphires. It helps cover the burn marks from a shitty underpowered pipe bomb that have faded with time, but will never completely go away. 

Akaashi is finishing its match, inked on Tobio’s left thigh. When they stand together on the streets, Kei’s sword in his right hand and Tobio’s gun in his left, they will form a protective shield on either side: they present a united front that says, _do not fuck with us, we cannot be torn apart._ When they fall into bed afterward, as they always do, the crowns will touch and tangle together, loop around each other, connect. The designs were Kei’s idea, his demand. 

_"I need you,"_ Kei had said to Tobio as they fought with each other, trading blows, learning how to love. 

_"I'm here,"_ Tobio had said to Kei as he ran toward death, committing to forever. 

Kei has always been demanding and Tobio has always given into his demands. It’s how things are between them.

Kei’s golden eyes, as they watch Akaashi clean Tobio’s irezumi, are heavy with satisfaction and pleasure. He’s possessive; it goes hand-in-hand with being demanding. Their crowns are positioned perfectly to be touched, for greedy fingers to dig into. They’re in the same location that once held long, slender marks, as if someone had been struck with an iron-cored practice bokken. They’re in the same place that once held smaller smudges, as if someone had gripped too tightly in a misguided fit of passion. Tobio’s fingers ache, longing to touch Kei’s crown, knowing they’ll have to wait until it’s healed. It’ll be difficult, but Tobio is patient. An assassin has to be. 

Kei’s eyes trail from Tobio’s crown, and Tobio’s eyes trail from Kei’s, and they meet somewhere in the middle. They always do. Tobio speaks first. It’s not often that happens, so he makes it count. 

“I concede,” he says, oblivious now to Akaashi and the needles and the smell of disinfectant, oblivious to everything but Kei’s eyes upon him. “You won,” he says. 

The words don’t stick. They’re easy to say.

“I did,” Kei says with a smug little grin on his face, preening like the _absolute asshole_ that he is. 

Tobio’s torn between wanting to punch him and fuck him, because that’s how this thing is between them. Neither one of them would have it any other way. He says it again, because the words are coming easily to his lips. 

“You won. You won everything.” 

He knows that he is lying. Tobio already won, years ago. He won because he has Kei.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is entirely Batman's fault because they said, and I quote, "I NEED one intense and tropey (GOOD tropey) short where kei makes it out by the skin of his teeth and tobio goes apeshit killing the baddies before going apeshit but sentimentally at the medic's over his near-dead bf)." Hope this meets your requirements, Tee. 
> 
> It was a close call for awhile there, but ultimately I gave into the feels and let them live. They even kind of got married at the end. I mean, they're yakuza so they're still going to live hard and die young and pretty, but they'll probably go out together. That's about the best they can hope for in that life, eh?
> 
> As always, you can follow me [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/kelidahauk) if you appreciate sword kinks, the foes to hoes trope, and excessive profanity.
> 
> We have a TKKG Thirst Discord server! [Come join us to chat about TKKG!](https://discord.gg/7wGBcyH) Only 18+ and older, please; there is a lot of NSFW content there.


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